


Breaking Fangs

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Blood and Violence, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Fantastic Racism, Fights, Flashbacks, Gen, One Shot, Unreliable Narrator, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 17:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12215184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: "I broke their teeth," Ilia said to Blake, on that cold and moonless night. There was nothing but menace in her voice, satisfaction at vengeance enacted.Things never happened that simply, they both knew.





	Breaking Fangs

**Author's Note:**

> The story behind Ilia Amitola's "I broke their teeth" line from the "[Blake Character Short](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTJzFCebdvQ)". Because I had to play that scene out in my head again and again and again.

_She's sitting on a rooftop, staring wordlessly into the setting sun, tracking it as it dips unhurriedly beneath the horizon. There's a small box in her hand, white paperboard, which she holds up for inspection._

_"Schnee Vanilla Excel," she says, by way of explanation, flashing the embossed label with a flick of her wrist. "Hard to get these now, you know, and I just found a whole pack in the park. Want one?" she asks, sliding a snow-white stick out of the packaging._

_"No thanks."_

_"Probably the right call," she replies, reaching into her pockets for a small lighter. It's a tiny gunmetal thing, Dust-fuelled, capable of burning through a steel chain in less than a minute. The flame's alive for the fraction of a second it takes to kindle the cig._

_"I used to smoke these all the time, back in school," she states without prompting, pocketing the lighter._

_"I didn't take you for the rebellious sort."_

_"I wasn't," she murmurs in agreement. "The popular girls did, though. They had this little bathroom, where none of the teachers ever went. Which sounds horribly cliché, but it's true. Every so often one of my friends would take pity on me and sell me one."_

_"How charitable of them."_

_She shrugs. "Prep school. I guess I'm just nostalgic." She brings the cigarette to her lips, wincing slightly as she inhales. She hasn't smoked in years._

_"This wouldn't happen to be the same bathroom where you-"_

_"-yeah, it was."_

_"Huh. Figures as much."_

_She exhales, smoke streaming past her lips like steam. "I never told you the whole story behind that, did I?"_

_  
"I pieced it together from the hearsay."_

_  
"Oh,_ great _."_

_"It's quite flattering, really."_

_"I doubt that."_

_"….When told in a certain narrative."_

_"The story of a White Fang freedom fighter, defeating her oppressors in her first battle?"_

_"More or less."_

_"So you have a hagiography. Fucking_ great _."_

_"I really don't care what you did when you were twelve, Ilia."_

_"Fourteen."_

_"Still don't."_

_She inhales deeply, then clears her throat, trying to hide a cough. "You really want to know?"_

_"If it's so important for you to tell, my darling."_

_"You know that sounds creepy when you say it." She shakes her head. "Well, in the beginning:_

It was in the girl's bathroom. The _little ladies' room_ , we were supposed to call it. This gross little hole in the basement, near the music storage room. A lot of people went there to light up, since it was kind of in the middle of nowhere, you know, and it had a window so you weren't choking on your own smoke. But I really just went there to shit. Had to do that a lot since it came out, you know, me being Faunus. 'Stress-induced irritable bowel syndrome', or something.

_She takes a decadent puff of the cigarette, savoring the sting in her lungs. She's always been a bit of a masochist._

There were these two other girls in there. Merah and Asul. They weren't the queen bees, but they were definitely up there.

 _She exhales. "Fuck, amazing how we can still remember that, right? Everything wrong in Remnant, and to this day I can tell you who the popular kids in prep school were. Who was_ in _and who was_ out _. Our fucking brains. Anyways…"_

"You can't smoke here anymore," Merah said. She was taller than me, gorgeous blonde hair and severe resting bitch face.

"I'm not here to smoke," I said. It's weird: you're supposed to smoke when you're stressed, something in the nicotine. I never did. Hell, I practically quit cold turkey. "I just need to use the bathroom," I said.

You've heard how rough it is being outed. Your whole world’s turned upside down. Friends become enemies. Teachers look at you weird. You go from being ‘ _total nobody_ ’ to ‘ _all anybody can talk about_ ’ literally overnight. So I was in a really, _really_ bad place that day.

Asul - this fat little bitch - got in front of me. She wasn't really fat, I mean, just a little overweight, but you know how things are in school. Everyone wanted to be the next ' _Schnee Dust Snowflake of the Month_ '. Asul kind of hung around Merah, who was really her hall-pass to a social life. Maidens know she wasn't getting anywhere with her looks.

_She rolls her eyes and groans, as if annoyed at herself for her own churlishness._

"You can't use the bathroom," Asul said, folding her arms like she was some shitty nightclub bouncer.

And for a second, I was really confused. Thinking, you know… is someone using the stall? Is it broken? Took me _way_ too long to figure out where they were going with it.

Merah, anyways, must have seen the look on my face. She had a cigarette in her fingers, which she always held _ever-so-daintily_.

_Ilia imitates the gesture with her own cigarette, dangling it between her index and middle fingers, so gently that a strong breeze will shake it free._

"You're not _clean_ , Ilia," is what she said next, which really confused me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You're _Faunus_ , Merah practically spat. "I don't want to get, like, _genital herpes_ because you're wiping your ass on the seat."

At this point I was still more confused than angry. In the mirror I could see my skin changing to yellow. I used to have a lot more control over it, obviously, but since the disaster I’d found myself just... changing without thinking. "Hey, come on, I showered this morning, don't be weird."

_Ilia pitches her voice upwards, trying to imitate the pitch of her youth. It doesn't suit her._

"I know how much Faunus _fuck_ ," Merah says. "It's not dirt, Ilia, it's the _infections_. You're going to give us all STDs sharing a bathroom."

"Or _rabies_ ," added Asul.

It was at this point that things started to click in my head. You don't hear about it much over here, obviously, but back in Atlas, back then at least, the media was _terrified_ that us dirty Faunus were going to be spreading diseases. _Worms_. I mean it was just segregation, really, but dressed up in medical jargon. Back then I was really more ashamed about it than angry. You see photos of gross-ass, homeless Faunus all the time, you know, and you think…. 'wow, Faunus really _are_ disgusting. Not me. I'm clean. But are the humans _that_ wrong…' I’d gone along with their jokes for so long, and all of a sudden to be on the _other_ side... 

_Ilia takes another drag of the cigarette, squinting her eyes, as if trying to stare back into memory._

So I tried to push past them and just get to the stall, but they blocked me, and then Merah just _shoved_ me. Really hard, out of nowhere. These were not violent girls, which I guess is why it was so surprising. But I stuck my arm out, and I hit the wall in a weird way, and… I ripped a nail.

 _She glances sideways. "Don't laugh," she says, with a glare. "It fucking hurts, not that you'd know. And obviously it's not that big a deal, but I was like fourteen and had just blown a week's spending lien getting my nails done and actually feeling like I was_ pretty _and… I guess I just snapped." She sighs. "It's almost embarrassing, really, thinking back to just how_ juvenile _it all was. But I was scared and humiliated and had this_ searing _pain, and then…"_

I lashed out.

Just a primal scream, really. And then I was just rushing at Merah, scratching her with my fingers. Pure rage. _Animalist_ , she'd probably say. She clearly wasn't expecting it, but I was just tearing at her skin, at her hair, like I was trying to peel her stupid face off.

She hit back. Not, obviously, like a self-defense move or anything. She just kind of pushed and flailed and hit me. Neither of us really knew how to fight. It must have looked almost funny to somehow outside, schoolgirls cat-fighting. We were like two teenagers just pulling each other's hair. Scratching at skin. Slapping. We had no idea what we were doing.

 _She lets out a puff of smoke she's been holding in her lungs for a long, long time. "But by the Four Kings did we hate each other. And rage makes up for a_ lot _."_

We stumbled over to the sink. The floor was slippery - it always was, something leaked from the field - and we were practically falling into each other. Hitting and yelling, hitting and yelling. One good punch could have ended everything, but that's not what we knew. We were _proper ladies_. After ten... maybe twenty… seconds of this…

" _I always remember this part. Adrenaline does wonders for your memory, doesn't it?"_

Merah stuck her hand out, trying to catch herself on the sink. I kind of _nudged_ her, knocking her off-balance, so she missed the mark. Her hand didn't catch the sink. But her mouth did.

I'm pretty sure I _felt_ the crack just reverberate up her whole body. There was kind of this moment of stunned silence, you know, where you get the feeling that everything's _changed_. She'd crumpled on the floor, curled up on herself, and I could see that she was bleeding. Like, there was blood _all over_ her hands, on the floor, all coming from her mouth.

"Merah-" I said. I actually was _worried_. She climbed to her feet. And then just… _leaned forward_. So she was bleeding into the sink, instead of bleeding on her clothes. Like she was _so concerned_ with not getting blood on her uniform, she rolled up her sleeves, so nothing else got on her blouse. Such a weird thing to worry about. But she just stood there, letting her mouth bleed into the sink. I saw that there was just this bloody _gap_ where her front teeth had been. And she was just _sobbing_.

Anyways, I turned back to Asul. She… she hadn't done anything. I guess she was just scared stupid by us fighting. She saw the blood, and the teeth on the floor, and all of a sudden that whole ' _tough little bitch_ ' act just evaporated. She was _pale_. She just looked so _scared_.

_"So what happened next? She fight you?"_

_"Not… really."_

She just wanted to leave. Which, you know, actually made perfect sense. I'd just curb-stomped Merah into a sink, as far as she could tell, and she was probably scared shitless.

"I need to tell a teacher," she said. "I need to get Nurse Katane."

Unfortunately for Asul, I was _also_ scared shitless.

She tried to move towards the door, but it was this stupidly heavy thing, and I slapped her away from it. I think I yelled something like _'no, you can't!_ ', but honestly it's a bit of a blur. She was starting to hyperventilate, Merah was probably like five minutes from bleeding out, and I was just terrified that she was _going to tell a teacher_.

_Ilia rolls her neck. "And now we kill people for a living. It’s kinda funny how things change, isn't it?"_

_"Not really."_

_She stares at the sunset. "No, it’s not."_

She tried to push past me, and I tried to keep her still, and we just kind of toppled to the ground together. She had more mass than me - I appreciate that now - and I knew she was going to escape. Going to _tell on me_. So as she was kind of scrambling to her feet, I grabbed her head, in both my hands. Maidens know what I was thinking. I just…

 _…Ilia makes a dramatic_ swatting _motion, like she's throwing something sideways…_

…into the wall. And there was this sick _crack_ , and she started crying, but I didn't stop. The adrenaline was just pumping into my veins, and I was so _scared_ , so _angry_. Everything that had been building up in me that last week suddenly had an outlet. So I did it again. Just grabbed her head and slammed her face into the wall, as hard as I could. I must have weighed like eighty pounds, you know, softest-looking thing in Remnant. But she couldn't do anything about it. I kept smashing her skull until there was a big red smear on the wall, until I was too fucking _tired_ to hold her any more.

I stood up, just shaking all over, covered in blood. Asul was basically unconscious. I mean, I think she was conscious, but she was concussed like a Vytal fighter. And Merah was still crying over the sink. She was… she'd stuffed her mouth with those paper towels, you know, the ones to dry your hands with. She had just crammed a bunch of them in her mouth to try to stop the bleeding. And they were also just _soaked_ with blood, I could tell. This disgusting red-brown color. She looked like such a fucking idiot. And I was red. Like pure, fiery _red_ , from head to toe. A devil from an old kid’s book.

And I just yelled at her.

_"You know what I wish I’d said?"_

_"What? I'm sure whatever you said was appropriate."_

_"I should have gone: 'You know all those dangerous Faunus you hear about on the news? ...I'm the worst one.’ ….Got that line from a movie, I admit.”_

_“What’d you say instead?”_

_"Well…"_

"Leave me alone!" I screamed at her, spittle flying. My voice could probably have shattered glass at that pitch. "Don't make fun of me _ever_ again. Just… _go the fuck away_! I don't _ever want to see you again_!"

_"Wow."_

_"Yeah. We were schoolgirls. Those were fighting words back then."_

_"I wouldn't know."_

_"Of course you wouldn't."_

_She takes a final drag of the cigarette, before dropping it to the gravel. She doesn't stub it out with her toe, though, just watches as the last little embers fade away._

_"What happened next?"_

_"What do you think."_

They expelled me, obviously.

It's kind of crazy I didn't get sent to some labor camp, looking back. Actually, I found out they never even called the cops. For starters, I guess I was beat up pretty badly, too. I didn't notice for a while, but... yeah, Merah had actually done quite a number on me. I still have a small scar - near my hairline - from that scrap. I guess they were worried I'd claim it was self-defense. That Merah and Asul had been committing a hate crime when I fought them off, or something.

Mostly, I think the school was just worried about its reputation. Who wants to be known as the academy that had to arrest a student who was secretly a Faunus? Not anyone in Atlas, I can tell you that.

My life was over that point. At least, my _normal_ life. A life where I got invited to after-school study sessions and talked about which college I wanted to go to. I was sent packing to Mantle on the first airship, without even a chance to say goodbye.

_"Not that there was anyone to say goodbye to at that point, I guess."_

So then I got dumped in the Mantle public school system. East 78 Upper Academy, I think. But the funny thing was… word traveled fast. Even across continents. Somehow, people already knew that I was the Faunus girl who'd beat the living shit out of two Atlesian princesses. I saw that there was no point pretending I was someone else.

_"But that was where you found your true calling. Where you joined our cause."_

_"Yeah." She toes the ground. “It’s weird, in a ‘small world’ kind of way, it’s where I first met-"_

_"-_ don't _say… her…"_

_Ilia watched as the faintest reds of the cigarette vanish into nothing, leaving only ghastly wisps of grey behind._

_“I told you it wasn’t a good story.”_

_“It’s not as_ heroic _a story as the versions I heard. But Grimmspawn is it satisfying.”_

_“....yeah…”_

_She doesn’t talk about it any more after that._

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short & brutal ditty that got stuck in my head. Absolutely butchering POV and tenses. Inspiration for this actually came from one of the opening scenes of _Ender’s Game_ , where Ender just goes ballistic on some bullies. Ilia isn’t quite the same single-minded finisher Ender is, but as I imagined the story behind the ‘ _broke their teeth line_ ’, it came out pretty vicious. ( _hapless shrugging_ ). I also realizes that, with Ilia being from Mantle/Atlas and Blake being Menagerian nobility, they almost certainly had to meet in the White Fang, though I kind of crow-barred in an allusion to an earlier encounter at the end.
> 
> If you enjoyed it, or if you have any feedback, criticism, suggestions, or competing headcanons, please feel free to leave me a comment. They keep me sane in these lonely days. Trying to recapture the cadence of high school bullying was definitely the challenge to beat here.


End file.
